The Reply

CHAPTER 11

After much discussion Che Lu decided to continue along the corridor past where the image had appeared. One of the students, more eager than the rest, took the lead. The young man was ten meters farther down the tunnel when suddenly there was a bright flash of light. Che Lu stopped, her eyes momentarily blinded. When she opened them and could see again by the dim glows of wavering flashlights, she gasped. The student had been neatly cut in half, the top half of his body lying just behind his legs, blood still gushing forth from a heart that had just a few more beats left in it, the eyes in the head blinking, then going dull and dead.

As one of the girls screamed, Che Lu held up her hand. “No one move!” Edging forward, she approached the body. Now she could see the tiniest of protuberances from the wall at waist height. She reached down and pulled the dead student’s hat off. She tossed it by the bump and another beam of fierce light flashed, cutting the hat as it flew through.

“Ah,” Che Lu said. Even as she pondered the problem, there was a deep, dull, thud reverberating down the tunnel from behind.

“The doors!” Ki cried out. He turned and ran back the way they had come. In a minute he was back, fear playing across his young features. “The doors are shut. I can hear soldiers on the other side. We are trapped!”